Quotation

Such is the Importance and Vertue of Proportion, that nothing can any way satisfie the Eye without the help thereof : So that whatsoever worketh any Pleasure or Delight in us, doth therefore content us ; because the Grace of Proportion consisting in the measure of the Parts, appeareth therein ; Wherefore all the Inventions of Men carry with them so much the more Grace and Beautie, by how much the more Ingeniously they are proportioned, whence Vitruvius saith, That whosoever will proceed in his Works with Judgment, must needs be acquainted with the Nature and Force of Proportion ; which being well and kindly understood, will make him not only an excellent Judge of ancient and late Workmen, but also an Inventor and Performer of Rare and Excellent Matters himself.

BROWNE, Alexander, Ars Pictoria : or an Academy Treating of Drawing, Painting, Limning, Etching. To which are Added XXXI. Copper Plates, Expressing the Choicest, Nearest, and Most Exact Grounds and Rules of Symmetry. Collected out of the most Eminent Italian, German, and Netherland Authors. By Alexander Browne, Practitioner in the Art of Limning. The Second Edition, Corrected and Enlarged by the Author, London, Arthur Tooker - William Battersby, 1675.

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Quotation

Now the Effects proceeding from Proportion are unspeakable, the Principal whereof, is that Majestie and Beautie which is found in Bodies, called by Vitruvius, EURITHMIA. And hence it is, that when behold a well-proportioned thing, we call it Beautiful, as if we should say, Indued with that exact and comely Grace, whereby all the Perfection of sweet Delights belonging to the Sight, are communicated to the Eye, and so conveyed to the Understanding. But if we shall enter into a farther Consideration of this Beauty, it will appear most evidently in things appertaining to Civil Discipline ; for it is strange to consider what effects of Piety, Reverence and Religion, are stirred up in mens Minds, by means of this suitable comeliness of apt proportion. A pregnant example whereof we have in the Jupiter carved by Phidias at Elis, which wrought an extraordinary sense of Religion in the People, whereupon the antient and renowned Zeuxis well knowing the excellency and dignity thereof, perswaded Greece in her most flourishing Estate, that the Pictures wherein this Majesty appeared were dedicated to great Princes, and consecrated to the Temples of the Immortal gods, so that they held them in exceeding great estimation ; partly because they were the Works of those famous Masters, who were reputed as gods amongt men ; and partly because they not only represented the Works of God, but also supplyed the defects of Nature : ever making choice of the Flower and Quintessence of Eye-pleasing delights.

BROWNE, Alexander, Ars Pictoria : or an Academy Treating of Drawing, Painting, Limning, Etching. To which are Added XXXI. Copper Plates, Expressing the Choicest, Nearest, and Most Exact Grounds and Rules of Symmetry. Collected out of the most Eminent Italian, German, and Netherland Authors. By Alexander Browne, Practitioner in the Art of Limning. The Second Edition, Corrected and Enlarged by the Author, London, Arthur Tooker - William Battersby, 1675.